One of the guards shoved me hard, even though I’d been silent. He glanced up at the Strigoi man. “You want me to gag her?”
I suddenly realized I’d been hunching into the back of my chair, unconsciously trying to get as far away from him as possible. He realized this too, and a thin, toothless smile crossed his lips.
“No,” he said. His voice was silky and low. “I’d like to hear what she has to say.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Please. Continue.”
I swallowed.
“No? Nothing to add? Well. Do feel free to pipe up if something else comes to mind.”
“Isaiah,” exclaimed the woman. “Why are you keeping them here? Why haven’t you just contacted the others?”
“Elena, Elena,” Isaiah murmured to her. “Behave yourself. I’m not going to pass up the chance to enjoy myself with two Moroi and . . .” He walked behind my chair and lifted my hair, making me shudder. A moment later, he peered at Mason and Eddie’s necks as well. “. . . three unblooded dhampirs.” He spoke those words with an almost happy sigh, and I realized he’d been looking for guardian tattoos.
Strolling over to Mia and Christian, Isaiah rested a hand on his hip as he studied them. Mia could only meet his eyes for an instant before looking away. Christian’s fear was palpable, but he managed to return the Strigoi’s scrutiny. It made me proud.
“Look at these eyes, Elena.” Elena walked over and stood beside Isaiah as he spoke. “That pale blue. Like ice. Like aquamarines. You almost never get that outside of the royal houses. Badicas. Ozeras. The occasional Zeklos.”
“Ozera,” said Christian, trying very hard to sound fearless.
Isaiah tilted his head. “Really? Surely not . . .” He leaned closer to Christian. “But the age is right . . . and that hair . . .” He smiled. “Lucas and Moira’s son?”
Christian said nothing, but the confirmation on his face was obvious.
“I knew your parents. Great people. Unparalleled. Their deaths were a shame . . . but, well . . . I daresay they brought that on themselves. I told them they shouldn’t have gone back for you. Would have been wasteful to awaken you so young. They claimed they were going to just keep you around and waken you when you were older. I warned them that that would be a disaster, but, well . . .” He gave a delicate shrug. “Awaken” was the term Strigoi used among themselves when they changed over. It sounded like a religious experience. “They wouldn’t listen, and disaster met them in a different way.”
Hatred, deep and dark, boiled behind Christian’s eyes. Isaiah smiled again.
“It’s quite touching that you should find your way to me after all this time. Perhaps I can realize their dream after all.”
“Isaiah,” said the woman—Elena—again. Every word out of her mouth seemed like a whine. “Call the others—”
“Stop giving me orders!” Isaiah grabbed her shoulder and shoved her away—except that the push knocked her across the room and almost through the wall. She just barely threw her hand out in time to stop the impact. Strigoi had better reflexes than dhampirs or even Moroi; her lack of grace meant he’d completely caught her off guard. And really, he’d barely touched her. The push had been light—yet it had packed the force of a small car.
This further enforced my belief that he was in another class altogether. His strength beat hers by magnitudes. She was like a fly he could swat away. Strigoi power increased with age— as well as through the consumption of Moroi blood and, to a lesser extent, dhampir blood. This guy wasn’t just old, I realized. He was ancient. And he’d drunk a lot of blood over the years. Terror filled Elena’s features, and I could understand her fear. Strigoi turned against each other all the time. He could have ripped her head off if he wanted.
She cowered, averting her eyes. “I . . . I’m sorry, Isaiah.”
Isaiah smoothed his shirt—not that it had been wrinkled. His voice took on the cold pleasantness he’d affected earlier. “You clearly have opinions here, Elena, and I welcome you voicing them in a civilized manner. What do you think we should do with these cubs?”
“You should—that is, I think we should just take them now. Especially the Moroi.” She was clearly working hard not to whine again and annoy him. “Unless . . . you aren’t going to throw another dinner party, are you? It’s a complete waste. We’ll have to share, and you know the others won’t be grateful. They never are.”
“I’m not making a dinner party out of them,” he declared loftily. Dinner party? “But I’m not killing them yet either. You’re young, Elena. You only think about immediate gratification. When you’re as old as me, you won’t be so . . . impatient.”
She rolled her eyes when he wasn’t looking.
Turning, he swept his gaze over me, Mason, and Eddie. “You three, I’m afraid, are going to die. There’s no avoiding it. I’d like to say I’m sorry, but, well, I’m not. Such is the way of the world. You do have a choice in how you die, however, and that will be dictated by your behavior.” His eyes lingered on me. I didn’t really get why everyone seemed to be singling me out as the troublemaker here. Well, maybe I did. “Some of you will die more painfully than others.”
I didn’t need to see Mason and Eddie to know their fear mirrored mine. I was pretty sure I even heard Eddie whimper.
Isaiah abruptly turned on his heels, military-style, and faced Mia and Christian. “You two, fortunately, have options. Only one of you will die. The other will live on in glorious immortality. I’ll even be kind enough to take you under my wing until you’re a little older. Such is my charity.”
I couldn’t help it. I choked on a laugh.
Isaiah spun around and stared at me. I fell silent and waited for him to throw me across the room like he had Elena, but he did nothing else but stare. It was enough. My heart raced, and I felt tears brim in my eyes. My fear shamed me. I wanted to be like Dimitri. Maybe even like my mother. After several long, agonizing moments, Isaiah turned back to the Moroi.
“Now. As I was saying, one of you will be awakened and live forever. But it will not be me who wakens you. You will choose to be awakened willingly.”
“Not likely,” said Christian. He packed as much snarky defiance as he could manage into those two words, but it was still obvious to everyone else in the room that he was scared out of his mind.
“Ah, how I love the Ozera spirit,” mused Isaiah. He glanced at Mia, his red eyes gleaming. She shrank back in fear. “But don’t let him upstage you, my dear. There’s strength in common blood, too. And here’s how it will be decided.” He pointed at us dhampirs. His gazed chilled me all over, and I imagined I could smell the stink of decay. “If you want to live, all you have to do is kill one of these three.” He turned back to the Moroi. “That’s it. Not unpleasant at all. Just tell one of these gentlemen here you want to do it. They’ll release you. Then you drink from them and are awakened as one of us. Whoever does this first walks free. The other will be dinner for Elena and me.”
Silence hung in the room.
“No,” said Christian. “No way am I killing one of my friends. I don’t care what you do. I’ll die first.”
Isaiah waved a dismissive hand. “Easy to be brave when you aren’t hungry. Go a few days without any other sustenance . . . and yes, these three will start to look very good. And they are. Dhampirs are delicious. Some prefer them to Moroi, and while I myself have never shared such beliefs, I can certainly appreciate the variety.”
Christian scowled.
“Don’t believe me?” asked Isaiah. “Then let me prove it.” He walked back over to my side of the room. I realized what he was going to do and spoke without fully thinking things through.
“Use me,” I blurted out. “Drink from me.”
Isaiah’s smug look faltered for a moment, and his eyebrows rose. “You’re volunteering?”
“I’ve done it before. Let Moroi feed off me, I mean. I don’t mind. I like it. Leave the rest of them alone.”
“Rose!” exclaimed Mason.
I ignored him
and looked beseechingly at Isaiah. I didn’t want him to feed off me. The thought made me sick. But I had given blood before, and I’d rather him take pints from me before he touched Eddie or Mason.
I couldn’t read his expression as he sized me up. For half a second, I thought he might go for it, but instead he shook his head.
“No. Not you. Not yet.”
He walked over and stood before Eddie. I pulled against my flex-cuffs so hard that they dug painfully into my skin. They didn’t give. “No! Leave him alone!”
“Quiet,” snapped Isaiah, without looking at me. He rested one hand on the side of Eddie’s face. Eddie trembled and had gone so pale, I thought he would faint. “I can make this easy, or I can make it hurt. Your silence will encourage the former.”
I wanted to scream, wanted to call Isaiah all sorts of names and make all sorts of threats. But I couldn’t. My eyes flicked around the room, searching for exits, as I had so many times before. But there were none. Just blank, bare white walls. No windows. The one precious door, always guarded. I was helpless, just as helpless as I’d been from the moment they’d pulled us into the van. I felt like crying, more from frustration than fear. What kind of guardian would I be if I couldn’t protect my friends?
But I stayed quiet, and a look of satisfaction crossed Isaiah’s face. The fluorescent lighting gave his skin a sickly, grayish hue, emphasizing the dark circles under his eyes. I wanted to punch him.
“Good.” He smiled at Eddie and held his face so that the two made direct eye contact. “Now, you won’t fight me, will you?”
As I’ve mentioned, Lissa was good at compulsion. But she couldn’t have done this. In seconds, Eddie was smiling.
“No. I won’t fight you.”
“Good,” repeated Isaiah. “And you’ll give me your neck freely, won’t you?”
“Of course,” replied Eddie, tilting his head back.
Isaiah brought his mouth down, and I looked away, trying to focus on the threadbare carpet instead. I didn’t want to see this. I heard Eddie emit a soft, happy moan. The feeding itself was relatively quiet—no slurping or anything like that.
“There.”
I glanced back when I heard Isaiah speak again. Blood dripped from his lips, and he ran his tongue across them. I couldn’t see the wound on Eddie’s neck, but I suspected it was bloody and horrible too. Mia and Christian stared wide-eyed, both with fear and fascination. Eddie gazed off in a happy, drugged haze, high from both the endorphins and the compulsion.
Isaiah straightened up and smiled at the Moroi, licking the last of the blood off his lips. “You see?” he told them, moving toward the door. “It’s just that easy.”
TWENTY
WE NEEDED AN ESCAPE PLAN, and we needed it fast. Unfortunately, my only ideas called for things that really weren’t under my control. Like us being left completely alone so we could sneak off. Or having stupid guards whom we could easily fool and slip away from. At the very least, we should have been sloppily secured so that we could break free.
None of that was happening, though. After almost twenty-four hours, our situations hadn’t really changed. We were still prisoners, still securely bound. Our captors stayed vigilant, almost as efficient as any group of guardians. Almost.
The closest we got to freedom was heavily supervised— and extremely embarrassing—bathroom breaks. The men gave us no food or water. That was rough on me, but the human and vampire mix made dhampirs hardy. I could handle being uncomfortable, even though I was fast reaching a point where I would have killed for a cheeseburger and some really, really greasy french fries.
For Mia and Christian . . . well, things were a little harder. Moroi could go weeks without food and water if they were still getting blood. Without blood, they could manage a few days before getting sick and weak, so long as they still had other sustenance. That was how Lissa and I had managed while living on our own, since I hadn’t been able to feed her every day.
Take away food, blood, and water, and Moroi endurance dropped through the floor. I was hungry, but Mia and Christian were ravenous. Already, their faces looked gaunt, their eyes almost feverish. Isaiah made matters worse during his subsequent visits. Each time, he would come down and ramble on in his annoying, taunting way. Then, before leaving, he’d take another drink from Eddie. By the third visit, I could practically see Mia and Christian salivating. Between the endorphins and lack of food, I was pretty sure Eddie didn’t even know where we were.
I couldn’t really sleep under these conditions, but during the second day, I started nodding off now and then. Starvation and exhaustion will do that to you. At one point, I actually dreamed, surprising since I didn’t really think I could fall into a deep slumber under such insane conditions.
In the dream—and I knew perfectly well that it was a dream—I stood on a beach. It took me a moment to recognize just which beach it was. It was along the Oregon coast— sandy and warm, with the Pacific unfolding in the distance. Lissa and I had traveled out here once when we lived in Portland. It had been a gorgeous day, but she couldn’t handle being out in that much sun. We’d kept the visit short as a result, but I’d always wished I could have stayed longer and basked in all that. Now I had all the light and warmth I could want.
“Little dhampir,” said a voice behind me. “It’s about time.”
I turned around in surprise and found Adrian Ivashkov watching me. He had on khakis and a loose shirt and—in a surprisingly casual style for him—wore no shoes. Wind ruffled his brown hair, and he kept his hands stuffed in his pockets as he regarded me with that trademark smirk of his.
“Still got your protection,” he added.
Frowning, I thought for a moment he was staring at my chest. Then I realized his eyes were on my stomach. I had on jeans and a bikini top, and once again, the little blue eye pendant dangled from my belly-button. The chotki was on my wrist.
“And you’re in the sun again,” I said. “So I suppose it’s your dream.”
“It’s our dream.”
I wiggled my toes in the sand. “How can two people share a dream?”
“People share dreams all the time, Rose.”
I looked up at him with a frown. “I need to know what you mean. About there being darkness around me. What does it mean?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Everyone has light around them, except for you. You have shadows. You take them from Lissa.”
My confusion grew. “I don’t understand.”
“I can’t get into it right now,” he told me. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“You’re here for a reason?” I asked, my eyes wandering to the blue-gray water. It was hypnotic. “You aren’t just . . . here to be here?”
He stepped forward and caught my hand, forcing me to look up at him. All amusement was gone. He was dead serious. “Where are you?”
“Here,” I said, puzzled. “Just like you.”
Adrian shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. In the real world. Where are you?”
The real world? Around us, the beach suddenly blurred, like a film going out of focus. Moments later, everything steadied itself. I racked my brain. The real world. Images came to me. Chairs. Guards. Flex-cuffs.
“In a basement . . .” I said slowly. Alarm suddenly shattered the beauty of the moment as everything came back to me. “Oh God, Adrian. You’ve got to help Mia and Christian. I can’t—”
Adrian’s grip on my hand tightened. “Where?” The world shimmered again, and this time it didn’t refocus. He swore. “Where are you, Rose?”
The world began to disintegrate. Adrian began to disintegrate.
“A basement. In a house. In—”
He was gone. I woke up. The sound of the room’s door opening startled me back to reality.
Isaiah swept in with Elena in tow. I had to fight a sneer when I saw her. He was arrogant and mean and all-around evil. But he was that way because he was a leader. He had the strength and power to back up his cruelty—even if I di
dn’t like it. But Elena? She was a lackey. She threatened us and made snide comments, but most of her ability to do so came from being his sidekick. She was a total suck-up.
“Hello, children,” he said. “How are we doing today?”
Sullen glares answered him.
He strolled over to Mia and Christian, hands folded behind his back. “Any changes of heart since my last visit? You’re taking an awfully long time, and it’s upsetting Elena. She’s very hungry, you see, but—I suspect—not as hungry as you two.”
Christian narrowed his eyes. “Fuck off,” he said through gritted teeth.
Elena snarled and lunged forward. “Don’t you dare—”
Isaiah waved her off. “Leave him alone. It just means we wait a little longer, and really, it’s an entertaining wait.”
Elena’s eyes shot daggers at Christian.
“Honestly,” continued Isaiah, watching Christian, “I can’t decide which I want more: to kill you or have you join us. Either option offers its own amusements.”
“Don’t you get tired of hearing yourself talk?” asked Christian.
Isaiah considered. “No. Not really. And I don’t get tired of this, either.”
He turned around and walked toward Eddie. Poor Eddie could barely sit upright in his chair anymore after all the feedings he’d gone through. Worse, Isaiah didn’t even need to use compulsion. Eddie’s face simply lit up with a stupid grin, eager for the next bite. He was as addicted as a feeder.
Anger and disgust flooded through me.
“Damn it!” I yelled. “Leave him alone!”
Isaiah glanced back at me. “Be silent, girl. I don’t find you nearly as amusing as I do Mr. Ozera.”
“Yeah?” I snarled. “If I piss you off so much, then use me to prove your stupid point. Bite me instead. Put me in my place, and show me what a badass you are.”
“No!” exclaimed Mason. “Use me.”
Isaiah rolled his eyes. “Good God. What a noble lot. You’re all Spartacus, aren’t you?”
He strolled away from Eddie and put a finger under Mason’s chin, tilting his head up. “But you,” Isaiah said, “don’t really mean it. You only offer because of her.” He released Mason and walked in front of me, staring down with those black, black eyes. “And you . . . I didn’t really believe you at first either. But now?” He knelt down so that he was at my height. I refused to look away from his eyes, even though I knew that put me at risk of compulsion. “I think you really mean it. And it’s not all nobility, either. You do want it. You really have been bitten before.” His voice was magical. Hypnotic. He wasn’t using compulsion, exactly, but he definitely had an unnatural charisma surrounding him. Like Lissa and Adrian. I hung on his every word. “Lots of times, I’d guess,” he added.
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